Walmart Offers Teachers A Discount On School Supplies (Yes, There’s A Catch)

Buying school supplies can put a pretty significant dent in one’s pocketbook, especially when you don’t have a lot of expendable income to begin with. For teachers who bear the burden of supplying a classroom full of students, Walmart is offering a new discount – but there’s a catch.

Walmart announced this week that it will be offering teachers across the country a 10% discount on classroom supplies purchased during its “Teacher Appreciation Week.”

That’s all well and good, but the discount will only be given in the form of a Walmart eGift card after making a purchase; meaning the savings won’t be realized until later and teachers will have to come back to Walmart to spend it.

Only certain school supply purchases made between July 25 and July 31 are eligible for the deal.

The savings process works like this:

Shop at a Walmart store for classroom supplies;

Register your receipts online by August 15;

Receive an eGift card with the savings from your eligible purchases.

Sure, it’s better than nothing, but it also seems like a lot of extra work for the teacher. And any teacher who’d hoped to spend those savings at a store other than Walmart is out of luck.

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I’ve conversations with several friends who are just getting into the teaching profession, and I don’t think teachers should be purchasing school supplies. The school, from taxpayer dollars, should be purchasing school supplies. At least for a great portion of the child’s education, things like backpacks shouldn’t necessarily be included. There’s over $10,000 per student per year that’s spent on K-12 education , and teachers always seem to get the short straw when budget cuts come around. Certainly there’s no need for them to go out of pocket on purchasing supplies. And it’s apparently a broad problem: http://consumerist.com/2014/01/10/hey-teach-classroom-low-on-supplies-take-out-a-personal-loan/

The fact that programs like Walmart’s and classroom supply loans exist indicate a problem with the way that education is done in America. The solution is not teacher salary cuts, the solution is not having students pay for supplies (I recall getting a list every year of what to bring to class). There’s enough money in the budget, $10,000 a year is enough in many places for a person to live, surely it’s more than enough to provide everything a student needs to be properly educated. I’m not familiar enough with the way the things are to know what needs to be changed to do a better job, but it’s preposterous that other countries can do far better with less. We need to tackle the problem from one side or the other first: do better with what we have or do the same with less. I’m in favor of starting with doing better with what we have first and then moving on to looking at where there’s bureaucratic bloat that can be removed.